September 5th, 2013

The new interdisciplinary PhD program in "Political Development" (PD) focuses on the development of political institutions over time and the ways in which they facilitate or impede adaptation to rapidly changing circumstances under the impact of globalization. The formation of political institutions, their evolution, their sources of change, their distributional effects, how they organize cooperation, and how they resolve or fail to resolve conflict have stimulated some of the most prominent theorizing in the study of politics. The emphasis on the development of political institutions invites multidisciplinary approaches. By their very nature political institutions affect the organization of the economy, the distribution of life chances in society, and cultural values; which are, of course, the concern of economics, sociology and anthropology. Because political development has a time dimension and its conceptualization and normative orientation are open to contestation it is of great interest to historians and philosophers.

Based on the strengths of the faculty in the Department of Political Science, and in collaboration with faculty from other units, the PhD in PD will train students in two broad, integrally connected areas of research: the quality of government institutions and the policy process more generally in the search for solutions to pressing public policy issues; and the design of political institutions for the protection and exercise of rights and the politics that go into their making, including pressure from civil society.

The program will develop these skills in two core substantive fields: (1) the political economy of political development; (2) the politics of the institutionalization of rights.

For more information, visit the Tulane Political Science page on the new program here.